Stakeholders want better living condition for teenage girls

Ministry plans campaign against early marriages

Stakeholders have vowed to continue to promote the Nigerian girl-child to attain her full potentials in the development of the country.

The stakeholders gave the assurance yesterday in their various messages to mark the 2016 World Population Day with the theme: ‘’Investing In Teenage Girls’’ in Abuja.

Chairman, National Population Commission (NPC), Chief Eze Duruiheoma, said the conditions in which majority of the teenage girls live and the challenges they have to surmount on daily basis cut a pathetic picture, noting that without education, in poor health and with little or no control over her own body, the future of the teenage girl in Nigeria is imperiled and her potential may never be realised more so as the challenges and obstacles faced by the teenager multiply if she lives in a village and is from a poor household.

Eze, who noted that teenage girls in Nigeria like in other parts of the world constitute an important segment of the population whose conditions have great implication for the welfare of the general population and the quest for sustainable development, said that at the national level, the conditions of the teenage girls are not in any way better neither are the burdens they carry lighter.

In a goodwill message, Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Senator Aisha Jummai Alhassan, disclosed that the ministry and relevant stakeholders are planning to convene very soon a national launch of campaign to end child marriages in Nigeria.

Represented by the Director, Child Development of the Ministry, Mrs. Georgete Azogu, the minister said: ‘’Stakeholders must focus on and stand up for the human rights of the most marginalised teenage girls, particularly those who are poor, out of school, exploited or subjected to harmful traditional practices, including child marriages.’’

She stated that the ministry was also carrying out different programmes to ensure girl-child education, gender equality and to address other issues affecting investment in teenage girls.

In the same vein, the Country Representative of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Mr. Dase Dasoko, said that good policies and investment in education and health that empower teenage girls and create economic conditions that lead to jobs are particularly important in countries with large emerging youth populations as such countries stand to realise a demographic dividend which has the potentials to bolster and speed up economic growth.